Can't Help
by Annabelle Crane
Summary: Season 9 Spoiler - Was the fall really so bad for Alex Eames?


**Disclaimer**: I own nothing. Please don't sue me.

**Author's Note**: It's been forever and a day since I've written anything. I have no idea if this is any good but something had to be done! Darn it! At some point and time I had to write something, right? :D Anyway I love me some angst. Be forewarned. This author's note is longer than the story. I'm just sayin'! :D

**Spoilers:** Season 9 Opener

**Can't Help**  
by Annabelle

Five minutes. That's all that it took for her life to come down crashing around her. Five minutes and one phone call. Part of her could not believe that it had been so easy. All of the work she had done over the past several years to be undone by one phone call. Really though, what other choice did she have? She could not stay. No matter how much she had wanted to, this place had just taken one too many things from her.

First, almost thirteen years ago, it took her the love of her live. It still hurt when she thought about it. As she sat in the parking lot of One Police Plaza she could feel her throat start to close in and the breath catch in her chest. It was a lot easier now though to make it stop than it had been. Even six years ago she would not have been able to calm herself so easily.

Second, it took her other half. Her partner. Maybe it was because they had been partnered so soon after her husband died. Maybe it was because as everyone thought they not only loved each other but were in love with each other. It did not matter, the fact that the job that she had once loved so much tried time and again to take away the reason for her getting up in the morning was too much.

Finally, it tried to take her soul. It almost did. They told her it was the only way. Flattering her ego, saying how proud her father would be that she became Captain of such a prominent section of the New York Police Department. How much it would redeem her father and her family. Take the apple, take the sin, and be born again. There was really no other way to look at it.

She did it for him though. Not for them. She knew that no matter what she did they would have still have fired him. They would have rather enjoyed dragging him through an embarrassing drawn out process. It was her love for him that allowed her to do the hardest thing that she would ever have to do.

Seconds later she did not have to think. She just removed her badge, took off her gun, and picked up the phone. It was like she was in a trance. It did not even hurt, not like she thought it would. Part of her imagined that it was like cutting off a dead limb. You felt that the appendage was no longer there but there was a little relief because you no longer had to deal with it or think about it.

Now she just had to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She still had the rest of her life after all, and her soul. Maybe it was a little more tarnished than it had been but it was still hers. So she did the only thing that she could think to do. She slowly she turned the key and heard the ignition of her car rumble to life. It felt like seconds later she was in front of his door with her key turning.

If someone asked her later how she arrived in front of his door she would just shrug. She pushed the door open and then walked in. Taking care to lock the door behind her she hung up her coat in his closet. She did not hear him come out of his bedroom. When she turned around she saw him with his head cocked to the side.

"Alex?" he finally said.

"What did you expect to happen Bobby?" she replied.

A small smile graced his face, something that she had not seen in a long time. He reached out to her and pulled him into his massive arms. This hug felt so much better than the one they had shared not an hour before. This was real, this is what made it easy for her to leave behind the only career she ever knew.

Years later when her father grumbled that she threw away everything she would just chuckle at him and pat him on the arm. He would never understand why she did what she did. She just couldn't help it. She couldn't live without him, he was part of her soul.

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